The Life of Isaac Ingalls Stevens, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Hazard Stevens

Sir,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the 12th of February, and to state generally in answer thereto that the events of the past four weeks, in connection with your own official course, afford satisfactory evidence that the most objectionable positions of your letter have been abandoned, and that you have finally been awakened to the true condition of the Indian war, and are seeking to make some amends for the unfortunate blunders of the past. You have probably learned how much you have been misled in your views of the operations of the Oregon volunteers, and how much unnecessary sympathy you have wasted on the infamous Pu-pu-mox-mox. For your own reputation I have felt pain at the statement made in your letter to me, for I am an authoritative witness in the case; and in the letter which submitted your own action in refusing to send me succor, I have presented briefly the facts, showing the unmitigated hostility of that chief. I assert that I can prove by incontrovertible evidence that Pu-pu-mox-mox had been hostile for months; that he exerted his influence to effect a general combination of the tribes; that he plundered Walla Walla and the settlers of the valley, distributing the spoils to his own and the neighboring tribes as war trophies; that he rejected the intercession of the friendly Nez Perces to continue peaceful; that he had sworn to take my life and cut off my party; that he and the adjoining tribes of Oregon and Washington had taken up their military position as warriors at the proper points of the Walla Walla valley,—and all this before the volunteers of Oregon moved upon him....

That some turbulent men of the Oregon volunteers have done injury to the friendly Cuyuses is unquestionable, and it is reprobated by the authorities and citizens of both Territories. It has, however, been grossly exaggerated. Had, sir, the regulars moved up to the Walla Walla valley, as I most earnestly urged both Major Rains and Colonel Wright both by letter and in person, these Indians would have been protected. The presence of a single company would have been sufficient. The responsibility, if evil follows, will attach, sir, to you, as well as to the volunteers.

In your letter of the 12th of February you state: “I have recently sent to Puget Sound two companies of the 9th infantry. These, with the three companies there, will give a force of nearly or quite four hundred regulars, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Casey. This force, with several ships of war on the Sound, to which will be added in a few days the United States steamer Massachusetts, it seems to me, if rightly directed, ought to be sufficient to bring to terms two hundred Indian warriors. Captain Keyes, in his last report, says there are not quite two hundred in arms in that region.”

Here you have expressed a very confident opinion. You thought proper to quote Captain Keyes as to the number of Indians, but you found it did not suit your purpose to refer to the requisitions he had made upon you for six additional companies, two of which only had been sent forward; nor could you find time to refer to the fact that Colonel Casey had recommended that, after the war was over, eight companies should be permanently stationed there for the protection of the Sound.

You think volunteers entirely unnecessary, although after having received from the executive information as to the condition of the country. It is now March, a month later, and you send two companies of regulars, and direct Colonel Casey to call upon me for two additional companies of volunteers.

Thus you have practically acknowledged that you were wrong, and that I was right; and thus I have your testimony as against yourself in vindication of the necessity of my calling out volunteers. As regards this call for volunteers, it is presumed that Colonel Casey informed you that the whole available force of the Sound country was bearing arms, and that the great proportion of them were actively engaging the enemy; that, organized in two battalions, the Northern battalion occupied the line of the Snohomish, where they were establishing blockhouses and closing the passes of the Snoqualmie.

That the Central battalion was occupying the military road over the Nahchess, in relation to which road and its military bearing your aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Arnold, will be able to give you full information; and that on both lines decisive blows had been struck; and also that it was beyond the ability of our citizens to raise an additional company of even fifty men to honor your requisition.

I have a right to hold you to a full knowledge of our condition here. If you say you were misinformed, then you are not fit for your position, and should give place to a better man. If you were informed, then your measures as a military man manifest an incapacity beyond example.

Therefore the call on me for two companies of volunteers is a call upon me to withdraw the troops now in the field with sixty to eighty days’ provisions, after decisive blows have been struck, and when everything is ready to strike a, and perhaps the, decisive blow to end the war.

I am, sir, too old a soldier ever to abandon a well-considered plan of campaign, or to do otherwise than to press forward with all my energies in the path marked out, promising, as it does, the speedy termination of the war; and, sir, I am too wary a man not to detect the snare that has been laid for me. You never expected, sir, that the requisition would be complied with. You knew that it was a practical impossibility; but, not having the courage to acknowledge your errors, it was resorted to in the hope that my refusing your requisition might enable you to occupy my vantage-ground, and throw me on the defensive. I hold you, sir, to the facts and necessity of the case, clearly demonstrating by your own confession the propriety of my course, and the necessity on my part of a steady adherence to it.